Most Overrated Artist

[Larry Bird]

Did he started to preach about the joys of christianity to you?

Richarson is fucking terrible as well. Who the hell sells photos of piss-drunk hipsters as art? If I want to see something like that, might as well head down to those yuppie-artsy places every city seemed to be plagued with.

yea, ive never liked terry richardson....im not a fan of ryan mcginley as well....anybody can follow around a bunch of hipsters, take photos of them shooting h and snorting coke, throwing up, bombing, acting like 13 year olds...

[poly800rock]

yea, ive never liked terry richardson....im not a fan of ryan mcginley as well....anybody can follow around a bunch of hipsters, take photos of them shooting h and snorting coke, throwing up, bombing, acting like 13 year olds...

which is exactly what larry clark does as well

[Carl]

yea, ive never liked terry richardson....im not a fan of ryan mcginley as well....anybody can follow around a bunch of hipsters, take photos of them shooting h and snorting coke, throwing up, bombing, acting like 13 year olds...

No dude.

Ryan McGinley is a talented photographer who is pushing the boundries. Don't lump him in here with the rest of the hacks.

[eastcoastrider27]

Banksy is genius. His pieces in Israel were amazing.

I guess I could see how someone could be over Kaws if all you looked at was the Bape crap. But if you look at his earlier work, the advertisement mashups and graff pieces he's a great artist.

Neckface...I could see why some might hate him, but he's up more than anyone else these days.

[tangerine]

Recently saw Matthew Barney show at SFMOMA and was not only unimpressed, but mildly repulsed. Maybe I was supposed to be. A couple of people I know and respect loved it, but he gets my vote for most overrated.

cultpop, you stated my case for appreciating warhol pretty well. I feel like most people don't appreciate his sense of humor...

[marsa]

Overrated...

Servo2000, what have you seen by Terry Richardson? Check out www.richardsonmag.com. I'm sure you'll understand more by seeing those series. Look at those series and look for technique, style, edge, message, and think about his marketing skills and how he is perceived in the photographic community.

Servo2000: DUde, you dont get it.....but try to relate to this...

what terry richardson does is to represent reality, not yours, not mine, but his.

If you know anything about photography and what it takes to make a good photograph, that ACTUALLY represents reality, you do what he does.Put it this way, if you wanna photograph someone naked and show what it looks like distant from the view of the lens, you remove factors that could influence the purity and REALITY of the communicative process..

you get naked your self and show the viewer what is was like...that what he does.

i admire the dude and his way he depicts realness and capture moments un-touched and pure.

ps: when your name is terry richardson and you get to do these kinda pics, YOUR GOOD,YOUR DAMN GOOD.

[jubei]

Jenna Jameson

[Servo2000]

Overrated...

I don't really like that term. How can you judge a good artist or designer?

Their technique?

Their style?

Their edge and creativity?

Their messages and contexts?

Or this combined with their marketing skills?

It seems like some people feel that for an artist to be called a true artist, one has to be poor and unsuccesful until ones death. Of the artists mentioned earlier in this post, they all have great skills in some ways. A couple of examples:

Banksy has a unique loud message with a lot of humour, matched with great marketing skills through his guerilla stunts. Thomas Kincaid, aka the Devil, has a dead ass boring message that appeals to a lot of dull people, and he has an insane nose for marketing and business. But does this make him overrated? No, he's really good at what he is doing, one just don't like it artistically.

Servo2000, what have you seen by Terry Richardson? Check out www.richardsonmag.com. I'm sure you'll understand more by seeing those series. Look at those series and look for technique, style, edge, message, and think about his marketing skills and how he is perceived in the photographic community.

I still don't care for his work. The photographers I know don't like him, and the photographers on here whose work and tastes I appreciate don't like him either. Again, I don't know much about photography, so what I enjoy or don't is purely informed by my tastes from other realms of "art" that are somewhat more developed being applied to a new context. It may not always translate, but at this point, I am still not impressed.

Remember, as I said before, photography is hardly a realm of art that I would allow myself to critique without mentioning how little I know about. I don't know whose popular, who would be considered a master, what sort of photographers like who, etc... so the context just isn't there for me.

Secondly, this element of "marketing" as a degree of artistic prowess is, in my opinion, absurd. We all know what it takes to get big, that knowing the right people will get you places, etc... but I don't personally consider that intrinsic to ones work.

It's a very western notion in art that your success comes more with how famous you are and how many people know your art and how many books are written about you and how many people come to your shows and how much money you can sell your pieces for as opposed to sucess through making great art. It's a thought process that I don't nescessarily agree with.

In a somewhat post-modern sense, I can certainly appreciate the ability of certain artists to "sell" themselves, but really I don't give a shit whether you're displaying in a huge museum in new york or selling your paintings off the internet for $20 a canvas, your work is only as good as your work regardless.

On a side note, I just woke up, so if I say anything too retarded I'll try to explain it later when I'm more awake.

[Louche]

Again, I don't know much about photography, so what I enjoy or don't is purely informed by my tastes from other realms of "art" that are somewhat more developed being applied to a new context. It may not always translate, but at this point, I am still not impressed. [/i]

Exactly. Your perception of art is different from everybody elses, and so is mine, and what makes good art or not is a personal matter. And in that sense, I have problems understanding how one can say that an artist is overrated. It's a discussion one can't win. It's like discussing which colour is the most pretty. But then again, in a way that is what discussions are for - to get ones viewpoints out. If you'd like to see what kind of art I like, you could visit my blog.

...Secondly, this element of "marketing" as a degree of artistic prowess is, in my opinion, absurd. We all know what it takes to get big, that knowing the right people will get you places, etc... but I don't personally consider that intrinsic to ones work... [/i]

Okey, I agree with your point in some ways. And I'm not saying that ones marketing skills has anything to do with ones work, but I have the same amount of respect for marketing skills as I do for the artistic work itself. So I would not call a widely popular artist overrated, even though I don't like that artists work. Be it Justin Timberlake or Thomas Kincaid.

...It's a very western notion in art that your success comes more with how famous you are and how many people know your art and how many books are written about you and how many people come to your shows and how much money you can sell your pieces for as opposed to sucess through making great art. It's a thought process that I don't nescessarily agree with... [/i]

And it's a very western notion that somebody successful can't be as good as the sales figures says...

[Servo2000]

And it's a very western notion that somebody successful can't be as good as the sales figures says...

Ha. Another good point. I suppose I'd say that for one to be "overrated," in my opinion, you have to be succesful or at least fairly well known, which is why no one is bringing up any of the smaller guys.

I supppose that overrated for me is when an artist makes millions of dollars doing what they've always done or started out doing and never improving or changing your work. Doing the same thing over and over again to critical acclaim without ever bringing in new influences from your life, from the world, etc... To me, that's when something can be said to be overrated.

Anyway, unless that one guy ever comes back to discuss Warhol I think this thread has run it's course.

[viv1984viv]

got to respect warhol, he encorporated industrialistic nature into his practice, he didnt sell out to anyone but sold as a company or FACTORY would, and this difference permeated all his work, silkscreens etc, this is a small part of warhol but has shaped modern art, which is incredible considering he was very multi-faceted.

[ishboo]

i mean, it doesn't matter whether it's andy warhol or anybody else. it would have changed regardless. and it's naive to say that andy warhol is the most important artist, because what he did would never have been possible without what duchamp and man ray and picasso (early) did, and what they did never would have been possible without what cezanne did, etc. etc. etc.

if you're going to talk about who is the most 'important' artist, the most 'important' art ever are the first cave drawings. they're responsible for everything.

also, if you guys are going to argue about whether or not banksy or barney is overrated, please back it up with something a little more substantial than "that shit i saw by him was sick, what are you talking about?"

i don't mean to sound like an asshole but uninformed, petty discussions about good v. bad art irritate me, because they're totally inane and pointless. what you guys need to understand is that as long as art has existed in the western world it has always been guided by money. the gallery owners and people with money decide what is important and what is good, and then a group of artists revolts and provides an alternative, which causes a sudden shift in the art world that is eventually calmed when the alternative is hung in the galleries. it's a constant cycle. so please don't try and argue about artists "selling out" or not. when banksy makes it into Deitch and starts selling his work for thousands I won't be surprised. the fact is, we live in a capitalist society and anybody who says they're making "Art for Art's sake" is full of shit. everybody needs to eat. nobody makes art hoping that they'll never sell it and die alone in the gutter. no, they want it to sell. so it's all bullshit anyways. i mean, yeah, andy warhol didn't "sell out," but only because he was lucky to be making his work at a very specific time so that he became so unbelievably popular that he could do whatever he wanted and not have to worry about whether or not it would sell. most artists aren't so lucky, and they have to create a niche for themselves (this is true especially in photography). and sometimes that means becoming a charicature of yourself, like barney. but just because you're trying to make a living doesn't mean you're a "bad artist."

[ishboo]

The photographers I know don't like him, and the photographers on here whose work and tastes I appreciate don't like him either.

I think it's funny how inescapable the notion of others is when talking about art.

I'm not excluded, either. So don't take that as a flame or anything (I agree with you, anyways).

But either you're popular with the popular people or you're popular with the unpopular people, you know?

[viv1984viv]

well said ishboo, your so right, artists are very context specific, and its not as simple as placing them inbetween the two poles of 'good and bad', far to simplistic. Yeah good call on mentioning trend shifts, like how many 'institutional critique' exhibits are there? Art is a slippery slippery thing and very subjective, perhaps so much so its impossible in a thread.

Do you like one wash or raw?

[ishboo]

Do you like one wash or raw?

uh...both really? dunno. my tastes change!

[viv1984viv]

both! One wash is bad. Raw is good.

[6MT]

i think any artist that focus on drawing little characters all suck..

[tangerine]

...

also, if you guys are going to argue about whether or not banksy or barney is overrated, please back it up with something a little more substantial than "that shit i saw by him was sick, what are you talking about?"...

I don't know if that was partially addressed to me, and it doesn't matter because I am not here to argue about it, and I agree with much of what you went on to say, especially regarding artists actually not wanting to starve in the gutter.

But just to play devil's advocate for a minute, how can one make a substantial argument, if it is all a matter of personal taste anyway?

[viv1984viv]

i like banksy, hes good, heh, what I was saying about it being too subjective is that, one guy may only know of cliched images you see on coffee mugs of an artists work and another guy might be thinking of an artist work in the time and place it was created and one guy could be thinking of an artists work in a historical context, all 3 guys could make substantial arguments but in a thread it could get tricky,

my banksy opinion above is my personal taste, he gets the thumbs up, but its not an argument, arguments get tricky, its not as easy as good and bad art, pros and cons of such and such....

[CactusArmy]

Isn't all big time artists overrated in one way or another?

But I think Da Vinci was amazing.

[cultpop 0217]

the fact is, we live in a capitalist society and anybody who says they're making "Art for Art's sake" is full of shit. everybody needs to eat. nobody makes art hoping that they'll never sell it and die alone in the gutter. no, they want it to sell. so it's all bullshit anyways.

utter bullshit. absolute and complete BULLSHIT.

i diagree and agree with alot of what you said but the above statement is complete rubbish.

you must not know very many artists . talk about uninformed.

i know so very many people that would never think of selling their work for various reasons. a few of them might give it away but for some the idea of selling their work is vulgar. a few of my friends had to be convinced to even show their work. for some art is a personal thing. something they do for themselves or only for a select few in their lives to ever see. they do not seek fame of acclaim or money. in fact the idea of making art for a living would be enough for some of my friends to abandon it altogether.

im not saying wanting these things is wrong or bad. not at all. i personally believe that art should be at least viewed by others in order to be complete.

but to say every artist wants to sell their work is so far off the mark its offensive.

[ishboo]

i know so very many people that would never think of selling their work for various reasons. a few of them might give it away but for some the idea of selling their work is vulgar. a few of my friends had to be convinced to even show their work. for some art is a personal thing. something they do for themselves or only for a select few in their lives to ever see. they do not seek fame of acclaim or money. in fact the idea of making art for a living would be enough for some of my friends to abandon it altogether.

then they are not professional artists, which is what i was talking about. they must make money in other ways. i'm not saying you can't produce art for art's sake--because i know that people like you're describing certainly exist, and i respect them--just not professionally. all art begins as a personal thing, yes, but for those using it to make a living it takes a different form.

But just to play devil's advocate for a minute, how can one make a substantial argument, if it is all a matter of personal taste anyway?

i think that's a fair point. i mean, in terms of pre-Impressionist art, you can make an argument for what is 'good' or 'bad' art since the art being made at that time was hardly conceptual, i.e., there wasn't anybody simply exploring the foundations of color (and if there was, it understandably didn't last until now). like, Da Vinci was obviously a great artist, because he understood how to render form and use color.

art nowadays is obviously hard to judge. i think that there is some art we could all agree was 'bad,' such as, i don't know, that guy who used to have that TV show where he'd make paintings of Alaskan landscapes. I mean, sure, he understood how to render form and use color, but he's no Da Vinci. and we have to frame him in terms of a contemporary understanding of art. just like we have to look at Da Vinci in terms of when he was working--because if an artist made similar work now, it would feel dated and bland, whereas in the 16th centure it was altogether revolutionary.

i guess what i was trying to say is that if you're going to argue with somebody about whether or not an artist is 'good,' you need to at least be able to back up your statements with some sort of knowledge. i wasn't trying to say that art can be 'good' or 'bad' even. that's a whole other conversation entirely (and i'm not even sure how i feel about that, at this moment).

[Servo2000]

While I appreciate a few of the points you've made, Ishboo, overall we disagree on so many issues so intrinsic to ones personal undestanding of 'art' that I really don't even see a point in discussing it.

[cultpop 0217]

While I appreciate a few of the points you've made, Ishboo, overall we disagree on so many issues so intrinsic to ones personal undestanding of 'art' that I really don't even see a point in discussing it.

d.i.t.t.o.

if an artist is consciously changing his art to pander to mass culture's expectations it largly invalidates his work and renders it irrelavant and unimportant.

[ishboo]

well if you guys aren't for discussing that's cool. i know i can come off very harshly and assholish, so sorry about that.

d.i.t.t.o.

if an artist is consciously changing his art to pander to mass culture's expectations it largly invalidates his work and renders it irrelavant and unimportant.

see i don't really think so. like i said, there are a select few artists that have had total freedom with their work, warhol, picasso, et al, but for the most part, especially nowadays, artists usually need a niche to fill. it's the same way in singing--lots of people have great voices, but the people with unique voices, like aretha franklin and bob dylan, are the ones that stand out. art is all about being unique, and unless you've reached a level of fame that allows you freedom to explore other things beyond what the public already expects of you, it's very difficult to do that and not feel the consequences, which are usually a loss of fame and therefore money. so i'm not saying that all artists are cheap bastards that are just pandering to the public, but i do think that becoming famous in the art world often means restricting yourself to something that is unique, that your name can be associated with. it's more of a developing of that uniqueness rather than a pandering, i guess. maybe what i said earlier was unclear. but i don't think that an artist creating a niche for themselves somehow invalidates their work.

i should probably mention that i'm a photographer, and work with other photographers, dancers, filmmakers, and musicians a lot. sometimes when i get in discussions like this people write me off because they think i'm not an artist.

[cultpop 0217]

well if you guys aren't for discussing that's cool. i know i can come off very harshly and assholish, so sorry about that.

see i don't really think so. like i said, there are a select few artists that have had total freedom with their work, warhol, picasso, et al, but for the most part, especially nowadays, artists usually need a niche to fill. it's the same way in singing--lots of people have great voices, but the people with unique voices, like aretha franklin and bob dylan, are the ones that stand out. art is all about being unique, and unless you've reached a level of fame that allows you freedom to explore other things beyond what the public already expects of you, it's very difficult to do that and not feel the consequences, which are usually a loss of fame and therefore money. so i'm not saying that all artists are cheap bastards that are just pandering to the public, but i do think that becoming famous in the art world often means restricting yourself to something that is unique, that your name can be associated with. it's more of a developing of that uniqueness rather than a pandering, i guess. maybe what i said earlier was unclear. but i don't think that an artist creating a niche for themselves somehow invalidates their work.

i should probably mention that i'm a photographer, and work with other photographers, dancers, filmmakers, and musicians a lot. sometimes when i get in discussions like this people write me off because they think i'm not an artist.

we are talking about fine art right? not commercial art?

creating a "niche" for yourself is all fine and good but if that niche is just finding a place where you can be commercially viable than, as i said before, your work becomes contrived, irrelevant, and unimportant.

i think you have it the other way aound. an artist might become "famous" and "acclaimed" because their vision or work is unique not because they found a niche to exploit. if it is not coming from an authentic place your work will never be considered important or very artistic for that matter.

[beefcake]

[werdtoyourmoms]

thomas kinkade is seriously awesome:

[ishboo]

an artist might become "famous" and "acclaimed" because their vision or work is unique not because they found a niche to exploit. if it is not coming from an authentic place your work will never be considered important or very artistic for that matter.

no, i absolutely agree. all great work needs to come from an authentic place, certainly, for it to ever be successful. i don't think that the fact that artists create niches for themselves is necessarily deplorable. i think it can be fantastic and produce fantastic work. and this might sound petty, but compare an artist's niche to a banker's choice of what types of clients they give loans to. they choose what will make them successful. this doesn't mean that because they turn some people down they're a BAD bank, or somehow impure, they're just doing the thing that they do. all I'M saying is, if you're a working artist, someone who makes their living off creating art (and i think there's hardly any difference between 'fine' art and 'commercial' art, because that's all a matter of context, not the art itself), then you have alternate motives beyond simply creating art for art's sake. that's all. that's not a bad thing--hey, everybody's gotta eat--i just think people lose sight of that when they start talking about artists in terms of what is behind their work.

[mspark]

andy fucking warhol.

no fucking way. Pure genius.